FOR YOUNG READERS

Apartheid and other dysfunctions

April 16, 2006|By Mary Harris Russell. Mary Harris Russell who teaches English at Indiana University Northwest, reviews children's books each week for the Tribune.

The Year the Gypsies Came

By Linzi Glass

Holt, $16.95

Ages 13-16 years

In 1966, in the sunny suburbs of Johannesburg, the realities of apartheid are remote for 12-year-old Emily Iris. Her family's dysfunction dominates her life. Her mother, obviously carrying on an affair, doesn't notice her second daughter; her father is absorbed in the technicalities of marketing chocolate and domestic sniping. The gypsies of the title, a family in a battered caravan whom Emily's father invites to stay on the property, serve as a distraction. Only Emily seems to notice what is ominously unexplained about them. The wife, scarred from burns, wears a python around her neck; the father, a wildlife photographer between jobs, has an interest in photographing Emily's older sister that's too intense. One of the two sons is developmentally delayed, and the other, closer to Emily's age, trusts no one. Emily's only confidante is Buza, an aged night watchman who says there's " 'no sweetness in a family with so much cracks.' " Linzi Glass makes readers feel a great storm is about to break--in this family and in the world of apartheid South Africa, which Emily finally sees because of an incident with Buza. Emily is remembering this summer from a better place, making its nightmarish qualities all the more evident.

Ruby Lu, Empress of Everything

By Lenore Look, illustrated by Anne Wilsdorf

Atheneum, $15.95

Ages 7-9 years

"The best thing about having a cousin come from another country to live with you is everything." Ruby's mother, always ready with an ancient Chinese saying and remarkably on target, notes, " 'A wonder lasts but nine days.' " Ruby is an Asian-American version of Beverly Cleary's Ramona, overwhelmed with enthusiasms and sometimes just overwhelmed. Her excitement at getting to be a "smile buddy" for her cousin, Flying Duck, is equaled only by her energies in hiding letters from school in her backpack and her hope that someday she, too, will get glasses. A good read for new chapter-book adepts.

Silly Suzy Goose

By Petr Horacek

Candlewick, $14.99

Ages 4-6 years

"I wish I could be different," thinks Suzy Goose, and Petr Horacek's pictures let us follow her through all her fantasies, as when she feels the ostrich's rapid run from a rider's perspective. Of course, there will be a moment when Suzy realizes it's not silly to be a goose, but there's fun before and after that.

Mammoths on the Move

By Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by Kurt Cyrus

Harcourt, $16

Ages 4-8 years

Lisa Wheeler has mammoth-size fun with the language, starting from the premise that "woolly" and "mammoth" are a combination not quite like any other animal we know. The rhymes ripple along, and Kurt Cyrus' scratchboard-and-watercolor illustrations make us feel we could almost touch these furry--well, woolly--mammoths.

Julia's Kitchen

By Brenda A. Ferber

Farrar, Straus and Giroux, $16

Ages 10-14 years

Cara is at a sleepover when her mother and sister die in a fire, but the much more subtle story is really about how we identify ourselves within a family. Cara and her friend, Marlee, are scrapbookmakers, but Brenda Ferber explores the memories not caught between the pages, the scents and techniques of a mother who loved to cook, whether challah for Shabbat or cookies for a catering business. Cara must create new relationships with her father, with her grandparents and with her sense of faith in a God who could let such an event happen. Deftly told and not the weeper it sounds like.

A Girl and Her Gator

By Sean Bryan, illustrated by Tom Murphy

Arcade, $14.99

Ages 3-5 years

Yes, Claire is the sister of the boy in "A Boy and His Bunny," and Sean Bryan shows the same combination of simple, expressive lines and witty patter in his second children's book. "The gator just smiled and said, 'Au contraire!/You can do anything with a gator up there.' "